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Category Archives: Dr. Gerald Stone

I am not Wendish. What research I have done into my origins suggests that all my ancestors since time immemorial came from the south of England. I became interested in languages and history when I was at school. I studied Russian and by way of comparative philology became interested in the Wendish language. I wrote my London Ph.D. on a Wendish linguistic subject. Fifty years later here I am translating Serbske Nowiny into English for my new Wendish brother in Texas. I believe that justifies the use of the word ‘obsession.’

I seem to be the only person in the world whose native language is English, who can understand nineteenth-century Upper Sorbian printed in Gothic type. Fortunately, I find the work quite interesting myself. There are of course plenty of Sorbs who could translate the texts into German, but personally I think it is better if they are translated direct from Upper Sorbian into English. I’m 83, but my current plans are to stay at my desk for the foreseeable future and I’m glad to be doing something useful.

Translated from Upper Sorbian by Gerald Stone on 11 October 2017 at the request of the Wendish Research Exchange.

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Arnošt Hančka was born on 11 September 1867 in Guttau, where his father had a farm. His childhood years and the conditions in those times are beautifully described by him in year (volume) 15 of the children’s magazine ‘Raj’ (Paradise), of which he was an editor and diligent contributor. He was still young when his beloved mother died. He mentions several times there the lost kindness of motherly love, and the reader feels how that saddened his young soul. Having completed elementary school, Hančka prepared for the teaching profession with great success in the years 1883-8. At Easter 1888 he was appointed assistant in Neudorf an der Spree and in 1890 in Muschelwitz. In each of these places he had to take care as the only teacher of a two-class ‘Wendish-German’ school. There was at that time already such a shortage of Wendish teachers that the authorities had to fill these most difficult places, demanding a particularly experienced teacher, with the youngest Wendish teachers, whereas four-class ‘Wendish-German’ schools often had to make do with a German auxiliary teacher. After Hančka had passed the eligibility examination with great distinction, he was called as a state teacher to Baschütz. In the same year the Purschwitz parish chose him as first teacher and cantor, on the recommendation of Schulrat Dr Wild, who held him in particular esteem despite his youth. Here he worked enthusiastically until his death with great distinction and loyalty, and earned himself great love, trust, and honour. Everywhere Hančka had to help and give advice in public undertakings and societies, as well as in personal matters. He became the father of his parish, just as his bearing – already in his youth – had a paternal air.

Hančka married the daughter of his late predecessor as cantor Rotenburg. The marriage at first remained childless, so the couple finally decided to adopt a poor child as their own. The kindness shown to this outsider child, however, was soon rewarded with a little daughter, with whose birth the Hančkas’ family happiness was complete.

Hančka was in all respects an excellent man. In him an extremely kind, just, and pure soul was united with a sharp intellect and a firm will. Despite his great influence, success, and recognition, he was humble and meek. He was a true Christian in word and deed. For many years he was the representative of the Protestant parishes of the Bautzen-Kamenz region to the synod of the Landeskirche.

Hančka served Wendish schools especially by drawing up a plan of instruction for lessons in Wendish in elementary schools and composing the readers ‘Kwětki’ (Posies) and ‘Zahrodka’ (The Garden), for which he wrote many fine articles himself. Even before that he had written a little introduction to Wendish reading for children who had only learned to read German, for in many ‘Wendish-German’ schools an all-German first reader was in use. Later he helped to write and compile additions to Bartk’s first reader. He was vice-president of the pedagogical section of the Maćica Serbska and to this body, as well as to the Union of Wendish Teachers, he offered many interesting and attractive lectures, and he was of great service to them both in conversation with his erudition and experience. We never asked of him in vain for any work for Wendish schools.

Thus Hančka was a good, loyal son of his nation. Love and gratitude in rich measure were in evidence at his funeral. A kind, friendly, jolly, witty, amusing man, always ready to help, he had gained many friends, even outside his parish and the ranks of his professional brothers. Of course, the work asked of him everywhere overstrained his nerves and heart, so that he grew frail and began to tire easily. He soon returned from the health resort to which his doctor had sent him, having learned that his sickness was progressing and full of longing for Lusatia, his beloved homeland. The very next day, Sunday 17 June, just as his parishioners were preparing for the Sokoł festival, he fell asleep. The parish minister emphasized his importance for the parish, both school and church, and for the whole Wendish people. A representative of the Wendish Protestant clergy thanked him on behalf of the Wendish Protestant parishes. Representatives of many enterprises and societies expressed thanks and high regard for the dear departed. Wendish teachers under the direction of conductor Krawc sang him a fine farewell and the president of the Union of Wendish Teachers on behalf of his own organization and the Maćica Serbska expressed ardent thanks to their late friend and selfless countryman.

This short autobiography of Hančka’s early years was first published in the children’s magazine Raj in 1928, shortly before the author’s death. It was translated from Upper Sorbian by Gerald Stone in 2017 at the request of the Wendish Research Exchange.

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As I write these lines, I have no intention of making out that I may have been something special. No, but I want my young readers to compare their experiences with mine and to learn lessons from one thing or another.

My parents’ house was no palace; it was a thatched cottage with one storey. The cowshed was built adjoining the living quarters. The barn too was thatched. The buildings today are still exactly as they were then; only the chestnut tree, which used to stand in the middle of the yard by the pool, has been dug out and the pool has been filled in. Otherwise everything is as it was then. I enjoy walking across the yard. Memories of childhood years come into my mind’s eye and stimulate feelings, sometimes of remorse and sometimes of joy. Oh happy times! I was still wearing a smock – it was grey – when one day I ran to meet my father who was driving from the fields with an empty dung-wagon. Father seated me beside himself on an upturned board. In the yard a front wheel went over a stone. The jolt caused me to fall onto the swingle-tree and one of the back wheels ran over me. My mother was standing in the doorway and saw the accident. She cried out in horror and came running to pick me up. I was weeping fearfully. Mother grabbed me and carried me into the front room, scolding father for not having taken better care of me. They sent for our neighbour Mrs Nowak, who was a bone-setter. She felt my back and told my parents that I had not broken anything and had not suffered any damage at all. At this news my parents were overjoyed, especially my mother.

The next Christmas I was given my first trousers. I do not know if I wore them taking those big strides as little boys do nowadays; but surely I was no different from them. Nor can I remember how long they lasted, but I think it was until Whitsun. At Whitsun I got a new pair, with a belt. My father thought I would not wear them out quickly, because the material was of very good quality. But he forgot what three-year-old boys are capable of. Just outside the village there was a bridge over the River Lubata. Beside the bridge on both banks there were sloping piers.

One out of a group of boys – possibly it was me, I cannot remember – had an idea that it was possible for them to slide down these piers in a sitting position. The idea was immediately put into practice and, one after the other, down we went. I cannot remember how long the fun lasted. I came home tired and hungry. As I was sitting down at the table for my tea, my father said: ‘Come here, please’. He had looked at my new trousers and seen something that caught his eye. He had called me to him so that he could have a better look. ‘Mother,’ he cried, ‘Come here and have a look. This confounded boy has already got a hole in his new trousers.’ Mother was shocked. ‘What on earth have you done?’ she asked. This was beginning to look like a serious matter. So, I burst into tears. ‘You scamp,’ scolded father, ‘Tell me what you did.’ So, sobbing, I told them about our game. ‘Just wait here,’ said father, ‘I’ll teach you a lesson.’ He went for the cane and aimed a few blows at me over my trousers, before mother took them off. A patch was needed. ‘Tomorrow,’ my father said, ‘I’ll go to the smithy and order from Mjerwa (Moerbe) the smith a tin bottom for your trousers like the chimney-sweep has. Then you can slide on your bottom as much as you like. That was a terrible threat and it frightened me more than any scolding or spanking. In trousers like that I could not have allowed myself to be seen by my friends. So, I earnestly begged first my mother and then my father not to carry out this threat, and so I was spared this punishment. Never again did I do any more sliding on my bottom.

We had a woman in the village we used to call ‘aunty.’ She was very friendly. I was often sent to her on errands. She was not particularly generous. One day I had to call on her around Christmas time. When I had carried out my errand, aunty brought me from her living room a slice of Stollen. ‘Here’s a piece of Stollen for you,’ she said, ‘because you always carry out your errands so nicely.’ I was surprised that aunty was giving me so much. I took a bite straight away. Aunty was looking at me intently. But eugh! What a strange taste! I could scarcely swallow what I had bitten off. Aunty urged me to eat more, but I excused myself by saying that mother had said I must not be too long, and with that I slipped through the door. I ran straight home. ‘Who gave you that crust of Stollen?’ my mother asked. ‘It was aunty,’ I answered, ‘But there’s something wrong with it.’ ‘You silly boy,’ said mother, ‘What could possibly by wrong with it?’ ‘You try it, mummy,’ I said, holding it up to her mouth. Mother took a bite, but she quickly spat it out saying: ‘God forgive me for my sins, but I can’t eat that; it tastes of kerosene.’ Later it was discovered how the kerosene taste got into the Stollen. Aunty had left some sugar on the table, where the previous evening a kerosene lamp had spilled over. I do not know who ate Aunty’s other Stollen. I did not visit her again as long as I still thought she might have some left.

Our neighbour was a German. He had a bakery and a general store. I used to hang about there almost every day after lessons. I learned German there. But when I gave my German its first test at my step-sister’s house in Radeburg, the result was pitiful. Germans, it seemed to me, spoke too quickly, so I could not understand most of what they said, whereas they could not make much sense of my German. So, I would have soon gone straight home, but for the fact that my sister could still speak Wendish and my mother and aunt were there with me. I was very sorry that people thought so little of my German skills. My old aunt, who was with us, had never been on a train before, though she was nearly sixty. As we were approaching the station, she was always alarmed whenever the locomotive whistled. ‘Good Lord,’ she kept saying, ‘Now our train is leaving.’ But fortunately, we still got home on time.

The neighbour I mentioned had a son, aged about twelve, called Julius. He was my bad friend. He made use of me, whenever he could. He was not a friend when it came to work. Whenever he could, he would tell me what to do. I had to tend his geese, while he sat in the shade of a pear tree. Once I had to plant potatoes for him. I was not expected to do that at home. I put the potatoes in rows, as it seemed to me. Julius was lying on the bank. After tea the master baker appeared and Julius scrambled up to start work. But when the baker looked at the rows which I had sown he said: ‘What sort of sowing is this, oh my goodness! Gather up all the potatoes again immediately! Some are nearly a yard apart, others only a few inches.’ Julius was angry with me and threatened me with his fists, but I made my escape without delay.

Once he accompanied me to the doctor, who lived in a village about three-quarters of an hour’s walk distant. I had to fetch a medicinal powder for my mother, who was ill. Julius persuaded me to open the box. We wanted to taste the powder. It was sweet, so we licked it until the box was half empty.

Julius was especially fond of chocolate. He did not get much of it at home. So, he persuaded me: ‘Go home. There’s a drawer, where your mother leaves her purse. Take a coin, buy a bar of chocolate from our shop and bring it here into the garden.’ Off I went. Mother was not in. And indeed, in her purse there were several coins. So, I did as Julius had said. I got less than half of the bar. The procedure was repeated. I did not realize that what I had done was wrong, but one day mother suspected that money was missing from her purse. She told me and I admitted my transgression. Mother was sad that I had stolen from her; now I too was sorry that I had done wrong and told her everything. I was punished. She shut me in the tool-shed. There I wept bitterly. Soon mother was sorry for me and I was released. I never touched her purse again.

I learned many more nasty things from Julius. When I reached the age of reason, I had a lot of trouble removing the weeds he had sown in my heart. I have never had pleasant memories of my ‘bad friend’. He became a mechanic. Later he emigrated to America. I never heard any more about his subsequent fate. May God protect you, young reader, from such bad friends. When they approach you, run away!

One night our neighbour’s place was on fire. Our living-room was filled with light. Had the chestnut-tree in our yard not protected us from the sparks, our house and dwellings would also have gone up in flames. From that night on I have had a horror of fire. I have always been afraid to sleep under s straw roof. In the spring our neighbour began to build. Building work of that kind is always particularly interesting for little boys. So I too used to stand there for hours watching, helping with pleasure whenever I could. One day a goose fell into the lime-pit and perished there. Aunty Piskar (that was the name of the family who had lost their house in the fire) was very angry and complained that I had chased the goose into the pit. But I was completely innocent; I had not even seen the goose in the yard. This accusation without the slightest justification hurt me badly, which is why I remember it even today. But there was worse to come.

In my native village the Albrecht Brook joins the River Lubata. Then a channel goes to the mill and the rest runs over a wooden weir. Beside this barrier we would often stand and watch the water rushing onwards. The most interesting time was the spring, when there were ice floes floating down. The more daring boys – of whom I was never one – would jump onto the floes below the weir and float on them. One day – when I happened not to be there – my school-fellow, Gustav Östreich, was at the weir. He fell into the water and drowned. The news quickly spread and when I heard it I was sad, because I was fond of Gustav. I was still more upset, however, when our maid brought news from the village that people were saying that I had pushed him in. I cried. It was a comfort to me that mother knew that at the time I had not left the room. But bad people would not be silenced by mother’s testimony. It was only on the next day that some people pulled little Gustav from the water. I wanted to see him, but because of the stupid gossip I dared not go there. So, Gustav’s mother sent us a message asking if I would like to see my friend in his coffin. So, I went with my sister. Today I can still see his little body in my mind’s eye. I wept a lot. Gustav’s mother stroked me. So, I wailed out to her how some people were blaming me. She comforted me and said that she knew for certain that I had not been there. That calmed me down. Children have an acute sense of what is true and what is not. That is why the false accusation so pierced my heart.

They often held spinning evenings in our village. That was always a great treat for me. I used to listen with attentive ears to everything that was said. I used to like the fables, but also stories about ghosts and superstitions. Later I was so afraid of ghosts that I did not dare go outside after dark. Only when I was about twenty years old did I manage to overcome my fears. Once there was talk of money being buried here and there in the ground. If in a dream someone saw a chicken sitting somewhere, it was a sure sign that was where there was money in the ground. Soon after that I dreamed that under our big pear-tree a chicken was sitting on its nest. Getting out of bed I ran to my good friend Arnošt Šumbak and told him about my dream. He was ready immediately to help me raise the buried treasure. So off we went to the field, each with a sharp mattock, and started digging. But it was hopeless task because the ground was frozen. With great effort we had dug a hole about nine inches deep before our arms were hurting us so much that we gave up. We had not seen a single coin and sadly we went home. Everyone laughed at us.

One Sunday I was with Jan Brězank looking after the cows in the pasture. It was not hard work. We were sitting among the bushes beside the pasture and could not think of anything to do. Jan had shown me how you could milk a cow straight into your mouth. But we could not do that today, because Aunty Kejžor was sitting in her window darning. She could see right across the pasture. I had been given ten pfennigs by my mother for tending the cows. What could we do with so much money? Jan had the idea that we might buy ourselves cigars. So we agreed that I would buy five cigars at two pfennigs each. I ran to Jank’s and soon returned. Jan hurried home for matches and in no time from the bushes around us smoke was rising as if from a poor man’s bakery. Smoking did not make me feel ill, unfortunately, for otherwise I might have been put off smoking for the rest of my life; that would have been a blessing. But at that stage I had not yet taken up smoking. I cannot remember giving it another try soon afterwards. A few years later I made myself a cigar from a few cigar-ends, but it would not draw properly, and I did not like the flavour of cornflowers, potato leaves, or leaves of a nut-tree, all of which had been recommended to me for smoking; so I gave up smoking until I was about eighteen. At that time, we were permitted in school to smoke from time to time.

In my home village there was a fair twice a year. It was an important event for us boys. We used to watch some ten or twelve booths being constructed in two rows the day before. Then the next day the stallholders arrived with carts full of boxes containing precious objects. We watched intently as they unloaded gingerbread and other tasty things. But the problem was money. I had been promised twenty pfennigs – ten by mother and ten by father. Compared with what I wanted to buy that was very little. At midday mother and father gave me the money they had promised. Although I complained that that was very little, I could get no more out of them. Only our maid Hana had a soft heart and gave me five pfennigs more. And so with this great fortune in my pocket I set off for the fair; I held the money firmly in my hand to make sure I did not drop any and I walked up and down in front of the booths. What was I going to buy? That was something I could not decide so quickly. Jan Rječk, who had five pfennigs more than me, began with liquorice. He let me taste it, but it did not take my fancy. I went to the roundabout. A ride on a horse cost five pfennigs, a ride in a boat cost three. I sat on a horse and in two minutes I was five pfennigs lighter. Then I saw that the bigger boys on top were turning the roundabout. So I asked them to let me go up on top with them. ‘Yes. If you bring a bag of sweets with you, you can come up,’ was the reply. So that’s what I did. Now I was allowed to help them push and when it rang we would sit on the poles and thus we could be spun round free of charge. Before evening I went down ro the fair again with the firm intention to make good use of my remaining fifteen pfennigs. Because everyone at home expected me to bring them something from the fair, I bought a bag of gingerbread balls for ten pfennigs and a whole gingerbread for five pfennigs. Now my pocket was empty and I went home. Everyone at home got two gingerbread balls. The whole gingerbread had been eaten by me on the way home. I went straight to bed, asking mother to call me early the next day. Why? The next day they were taking down the stalls and we boys would be looking for money. Once I had found two pfennigs and that encouraged me at every fair to go looking for money. But such luck as that first time never returned to me.

Where I lived there is no forest, so the children used to go to the Teichnitz woods to gather berries. I was about five years old when my sister allowed me to go with her for the first time. I could not get a jug big enough to satisfy me. But the work was hard! My awkward fingers could not pick many berries and what they did pick tended to go into my mouth rather than into the jug. In the end my sister admonished me severely to pick the berries straight into the jug. So I did. The bottom of the jug was well covered when we set off home. But again and again my hand found its way into the jug and the stock of berries got smaller and smaller. Shortly before we reached the village the berries had all gone and all I brought home was an empty jug and a black mouth. How they laughed at me!

At Easter 1873 I was expected – or rather I was permitted – to start school. It was like this. The 1836 School Law stated that children who by Michaelmas would complete their sixth year must start attending school the previous Easter. Because I was born in September I would have been permitted to start school in accordance with this statute. But a new school law had been passed in 1873 which said that only those children could be accepted who had reached the age of six by 30 June. So really I should not have started school, but the Cantor (who was also the village schoolmaster) accepted me. I am to this day grateful to him for that. Consequently, I was later able to start work a year early.

I cannot remember much about my first school day apart from the fact that I slept badly the night before from excitement and, contrary to my previous habit, rose early. After breakfast I began making preparations for this important step, although the time for reception was fixed at one o’clock (so after lunch). I did not have much trouble getting my things together. I only had two slate pencils and a slate. My father considered a satchel was not necessary and I did not yet have a reading-book. But I kept brushing my jacket and smoothing my hair down, so that the looking-glass in the living room was on that day only for me. The hands on the clock, in my opinion, were not moving. I was already good at telling the time. My eldest sister was due to accompany me to school on the first day. Why mother was not going with me, I can no longer remember. At half past twelve we set out; my sister was cross with me because I could not wait; I was frightened we would be late. What we did in the school, I cannot remember. We received bags of dainties, but by today’s standards they were poor and stingy. When we children entered the building we were frightened; our guardians had surreptitiously disappeared. Many of the children began to cry and call for their mothers. My eyes too began to fill with tears when I could no longer see my sister. Suddenly, however, all the women were back. They had only been in the other room, which at that time was not in use. I went home with the others, firmly holding my sister’s hand. I asked my sister, who already went to school, about the new things I had seen there. I was especially interested in the map on the wall, whose meaning and purpose I could not understand. It seems I liked going to school. When the first fair took place, in the middle of June, I received twenty pfennigs from the Kantor, because I could read nicely. The equivalent gift for the girls went to Hana, the daughter of the estate-owner in Brösa. There was great joy on that day and the fair seemed better and more important to me than at any other time.

The place next to me at school was occupied by Arnošt B., the present-day owner of the estate. He was a good-natured boy. He brought sandwiches to school every day. I did not have any, because I came from the village. But Arnošt was generous, so every day he gave me half his sandwich. His mother spread the butter fairly thick, so it is no surprise that I liked her sandwiches better than those I got home. In the winter Arnošt always had apples in his satchel, small and green ones, it is true, but very tasty; my mouth still waters when I think of them. After we were grown up, we would still often talk of those times.

For administering punishment the Kantor had a short ruler. He would use it from time to correct us. One day my school-friend stabbed me in the hand with a pen. To this day I still have a scar on my hand. The wound bled profusely, and, like all children when they see blood, I was alarmed. The Kantor was not there yet. He entered the noisy classroom in a rage and, because all the children were standing around me, he made straight for me with his ruler to punish me. But my classmates, in particular my friend Arnošt, confirmed that I was not guilty. And so I avoided being punished. I had to wash my wound in the brook which ran near the school, until it stopped bleeding.

Some events I have described in the ‘Zahrodka.’ Others I have completely forgotten. I only went to school in Guttau for a year and a quarter. Then a difficult change intervened in my life, of which I shall write next time.

Before I proceed to the more serious experiences, here are two further memories. Where the Lubata leaves Guttau it forms the boundary between properties in our village and the neighbouring village. The fields there are very low-lying. There is a risk of flooding. For that reason a high bank has been built there. On the bank osiers have been planted. These osiers were cut every spring. They were leased to a Mr Weber, a basket-maker from Bautzen. He had his store in our barn. Every morning he would go out and cut the osiers with a curved knife. The children who did not have to be school would go there with wooden tongs, take an armful of green osiers, sit down on the bank, and plant the tongs in the ground between their feet. Herr Rječk used to make the tongs. He would take an oak post and split it lengthwise with a thin blade into four down to about half its length. He cut out two of the four quarters opposite each other, so that two quarters opposite each other remained. The osier was pushed between them and pulled through the tongs from one end to the other. Its skin would burst and was then peeled off with the fingers. Each batch of threescore osiers was bound separately with the osier skins. We little boys could peel about thirty score osiers in half a day. In the evening we would hand them over to Mr Weber and receive two pfennigs for threescore. I remember Mr Weber was the first person to bring the new German state coins into the village. There was a great scramble to get hold of them and anyone who got one of these coins was happy.

The parish pastor in those days was Mr Sommer, born in Malschwitz. He was a fine figure of a man with a friendly face and was apparently particularly fond of children. His study was on an upper floor directly above the front door. When he saw children in the road leading past the manse, he would open the window and throw down coins, pieces of sugar, little pieces of gingerbread, or any other titbits he happened to have. The boys came running and collected everything up. One got more, another less, depending on luck. ‘The pastor is throwing things,’ one boy would say to another, and the little crowd of collectors would grow rapidly. Twice, sometimes even three times, the pastor would repeat his generosity. Then he would close the window and the fun was over for that day. We boys used think all clergymen did the same thing. When later on I went to the Malschwitz parish, I enquired when ‘the pastor threw things’ and was utterly astounded that the Malschwitz boys knew nothing about that.

I have a further memory of the kindness of our pastor. One day mother sent me and my sister to him with a basket of potatoes. He came down to answer the door himself and allowed us to enter his garden and eat our fill of the berries growing there. That was a treat for us. At home we did not have a single berry growing in the entire garden.

When I was six, my mother began to fall ill. Once on a warm day she came in from the field feeling thirsty and she was sweating a lot. She drank some cold water from the well. After drinking she was seized by a fever; a few days later she had a cough and could not get rid of it. The sickness grew and the frightful cough tormented her increasingly day by day. The doctor from Klix used come often, but he could not help her. Although she was growing weaker and weaker, she constantly comforted us, assuring me and my sister that she would be better before Father Christmas came. One day she wished us a particularly touching ‘good night’. We slept upstairs. As every evening, my sister with her clear voice was singing in bed ‘The bright sun has gone to rest.’ As well as I could, I was singing with her. Then we both fell asleep and did not notice how the angel of death approached mother’s bed. She could feel that the end was near. Her last prayer was for the two of us, especially for me, her little one. And if in life things have always gone well for me, I have often thought to myself: ‘That’s the effect of mother’s prayer on her deathbed.’ When they asked her if she wanted to see us children once again, she shook her head and whispered: ‘Let them sleep.’ When we got up in the morning, she lay stiff and cold in her bed. Her loving heart had stopped.

What had happened to me when mother closed her eyes in the sleep of death, I did not yet realize. Of the funeral I can remember very little. The coffin, however, I can still see in my mind’s eye. It was standing before the front-door and was still open as we stepped out into the yard. We had to take our leave of our dead mother. My father and my sister took her hand. I had to do the same. But how shocked I was, because mother’s hand, which had so often stroked me lovingly, was ice-cold! I was so frightened that I burst into tears. And the pale, yellowish face with closed, deeply sunken eyes! No, that could not be my mother. The coffin was sealed and taken to the cemetery. The grave had been dug close to the church by the west door. There mother was buried. When we had all returned home and the grieving relatives had dispersed, everything seemed so empty in the house, although there was only one pair of hands less than there had been. My sister, who was five years older than me, wept constantly and sang repeatedly:

Away, away the orphan went

Home to seek her mother.

I knelt beside a chair and laid my face on it, constantly weeping. What could we do now without mother?

The property had belonged to mother, so it had to be sold by the court. My sister and I asked father to buy it, so that we would not need to leave our home. I remember very well the day when a crowd of men gathered in our living room. The representative of the court, a certain Mr Dracha, arrived in a carriage. We children had to leave the room and we went to Aunty Nowak. The sale did not take long. Father had bought the property. It was a happy moment when he told us that we were staying in Guttau. But the happiness did not last long. Why father without mother could not cope with running the place, I do not know. One day two men came to our house. One of them was a certain Pawlik from Eutrich. They were a pair of brokers. They persuaded father to sell the property, which was something over thirty Scheffel (bushels) in size. The sale of the family house made me and my sister very sad. With all my might I hated the two men who were responsible for this. What now? The buyers divided the property and the second of them by the purchase of the fields enlarged his fortune. Father decided to move to Bautzen and find a job there. He could not find a use there for us children. For my sister a refuge was soon found. Our eldest step-sister, who had married a man in Radeburg, wrote asking for her and father drove her there – to Germany. And she never returned to the Wendei. She married a German and after many hardships and struggles died in Meissen at a relatively young age after grievous suffering. There she rests now in foreign soil.

But what was to be done with this boy? That was father’s constant worry. Nobody could make anything out of me, because I was not yet capable of work, and father did not want to spend much on me. Well, he had heard that a certain Patok in Kleinsaubernitz had once said he could take on a goose-boy. Father had promised him he could have me for that job and the two men had come to an agreement. On Sunday I was to go with father to the Patoks to be introduced. So off I went with him. To be sure, the Patoks were good, kind people and gave me a warm welcome. But everything was so alien. I was to stay there straight away. The next day father would send on my everyday clothes and whatever else I needed. In the evening father said goodbye to me, reminding me to be a good boy. When father had gone my heart was ready to break. I wept bitterly and the Patoks comforted me. For a moment they left me alone and I used that moment to escape. I ran for all I was worth after father to Guttau and caught him up before he got home. He was extremely disappointed, but when I told him in tears that I could not stay there, he did not scold, but took me in again.

I had a married step-sister who lived in Wartha. I had often been there. They had a copy of Beckar’s bible stories there. I loved reading them. I was pleased that I could read there for myself what the Kantor had told us about in school. My step-sister had always been kind to me; I was especially fond of her, because she was very similar to my late mother. She could sing beautifully. I had a grandma there too, who was, it was true, very strict; but at the same time she was also kind. So I asked father to send me Wartha and he agreed. Whether he had to pay them anything for me, I do not know; I think he probably did. One January day in 1876 I had to say goodbye to my father and to my home. That was the most difficult experience of my whole life. With a bundle under my arm I left father and the house. I called in on Aunty Nowak, with whom I had spent a large part of my childhood. Pětk‘s smithy was another house I could not pass by without calling. There I had often been permitted to make nails or turn the whetstone. That was the reason why I had firmly decided to become a blacksmith. It was the last house in the village; after that the road led between the fields and ponds to Lömischau. I reached the road in tears, frequently looking back in sorrow at the house. The last part of it to remain visible was the barn. Whether I first visited my mother’s grave, I cannot remember; but Aunty Nowak would probably have reminded me to do so. There were now no other women in the house and father was not a man of fine feelings. The road to Wartha normally took half an hour, but I do not know how long I took to cover it. Wartha is a comparatively long village. I took a long and careful look at every house, more than I had before, because now I was one of the people of Wartha. My sister’s place stood in the middle of the village, near the school. I only had a short journey to school, which did not suit me, because it meant I did not need a satchel, though I very much wanted one. I entered the living-room. Sitting on the sofa was my grandpa, my brother-in-law’s father. I have forgotten how he welcomed me; I remember only that he immediately told me to sweep the room, so that I should not be idle. ‘The broom’s in the porch,’ said grandpa. I fetched it and started sweeping – for the first time in my life! At home I had not needed to do much work. So I was fairly unskilled. Grandpa scolded me for my awkwardness; whether I was hungry, he had not asked.

Near the sofa stood a cradle, in which a little boy and a little girl were sleeping. Later I had to look after them and to push them here and there. In the evening my brother-in-law, sister, and grandma came home. Where they had been, I have forgotten. Probably my brother-in-law and grandma had been in the wood. In the winter my brother-in-law used to go to work in the forest. Now it was time for the evening meal. But here there was no sandwich cut the whole way through the loaf, as I was accustomed to have at home, but only a small half slice with rather salty butter spread thinly. I did not know at that time that my brother-in-law was struggling with economic difficulties. In the evening we used to sit in darkness until my sister and grandma had finished their work in the cowshed. Then they would take a kerosene lamp from the lantern and stand it in the middle of the table on an upturned pot. There was not much light in the room. We all used to sit round the table. My sister brought a pot of potatoes and emptied them out straight onto the table. Everyone put his arms on the table edge to stop the potatoes rolling onto the floor. Then she brought a saucepan or enamel bowl with brown gravy and put it down beside the lamp. Each of us would stick half a potato onto the end of his knife, dip it into the gravy, then quickly put it into his mouth. If someone was particularly lucky he might now and again get a lump of fat, but deliberately fishing for lumps was forbidden. If grandma detected attempts of that kind, someone was in for a scolding. We went to bed early.

The next morning two loads of corn had to be threshed before my brother-in-law went to work. ‘Can you thresh?’ he asked me. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Then you must learn,’ he said. In the morning soon after six I was called and had to go with the others to the barn. I had to learn how to thresh and I obeyed quite blindly, though there was no way of avoiding scoldings, especially when I banged someone with the flail. When the two loads had been threshed, it was time for breakfast. Potatoes again, as at supper.

I did not like the potatoes in that thin gravy. So grandma lectured me: ‘Eat it up! Eat it up! You won’t get a slice of bread until ten o’clock. It isn’t here like it was at your previous home, where you used to keep asking for slices.’ So I ate up. In the morning I had to look after the two children. At the appointed hour I received a slice of bread in the same form as the previous day. At midday it was potatoes again. Then I got ready for school, which began at one o’clock.

I did not like the school in Wartha, which at that time was still in the old building, but with time I grew used to it. The teacher was Herr Krawc. He was stricter than Kantor Bayer, but I made friends with him too. I was surprised to see how Herr Krawc, after school, would pick up a mattock or rake and go into his school fields to cultivate them. When he moved to Rodewitz, we got a really young teacher, Herr Lukaš, who later was the teacher in Döbeln. I was not often punished at school. Only once Herr Lukaš struck me a few times on the head with the bow of his violin, because I was singing badly. Whether that improved the tune I cannot say.

For a long time I felt homesick. I missed my Guttau friends. So I was overjoyed when my sister sent me to Guttau one day to exchange some butter for a few things from the Janks. I ran quickly and, when I had completed my errand, I went to see Arnošt Šumberg. That was a joyful meeting.

It was at a time of flooding. So we walked to the dyke protecting the Guttau fields from the waters of the Lubata. The water only needed to rise a foot or two before it would flow over the dyke. We two boys were thinking to ourselves: ‘Just imagine if that were to happen now!’ Whose idea it was I can no longer remember. We took a stick and tried to pierce the dyke. Fortunately, however, we achieved nothing with our sticks. We did not think what an unimaginable disaster we would have caused, if our crime had been successful. – Thus children in their silliness can do things which cause great harm to people.

Sunset was not far off, so it was time for me to set off home. First, however, I had to walk through ‘our’ yard. The front door was closed. Father, who was still living in Guttau, was not at home. So I could only look through the window into the living room. Everything was still standing there as before – but what I had most loved was no longer there. Now it was time for home, quickly.

Catching sight of my sister’s place from far off, I could see that she was in front of the yard waiting for me. When I came closer, I noticed that she had her right hand under her apron. When I came close to her, she drew it out and suddenly a stick was dancing on my back. ‘Take that for your endless delay in Guttau!’ she thundered at me. ‘I’ve been waiting for you for hours.’ And so my first trip to my old home ended in tears. – The next time I did not stay there so long, because I had been told in advance that I would never be allowed to go to Guttau again, if I did not hurry back.

In the summer I had to tend the cows on the grass verges between the fields. I did not like this job, because I continually had to struggle with the animals who were attracted by the young green crops in the fields, whereas they did not like the dry grass on the margins. In the autumn in the meadows they were much easier to tend. Then I could lie on my back and look at the sky. When the stars came out, I counted them. Once the teacher asked how many stars there were in the sky. I quickly raised my hand and said: ‘Sometimes four, five, etc.’ There was laughter. The teacher laughed most. The ‘stupid’ children, who often could not answer as well as I could, of course, laughed most of all. That upset me terribly and for a long time I did not put my hand up any more.

One autumn we had visitors. These people were eager to get their hands on some mushrooms. It was not a good year for mushrooms, but they still sent me into the woods with a basket hoping I would find some. I covered a fair distance without finding a single mushroom. So I asked God to help me fill my basket. And behold, my prayer was heard. I came across a thicket. I crawled on my belly into the baby fir-trees and caught sight of the first mushroom. What joy! I pressed on, and there were more and more of them. I reached the far side of the thicket and, when I had finished, the basket was almost full. Contented, I sauntered home.

There was a game that was once popular among boys called ‘fenglowanje.’ A round hole was sunk into the firm ground. A button had to be thrown into the hole from a distance. The one who managed this or whose button lay nearest to the hole was the first to be allowed to attempt to flip the button into the hole with a bent rod. Whoever succeeded was allowed to keep the button. Luck, even in those days, was fickle. One day I had gambled my buttons and lost them all. A sad Sunday afternoon awaited, because I did not possess a single button. But wait! In an upstairs room my brother-in-law’s trousers were lying. I did not know he still liked to wear them, so I cut off all the buttons. Now I could participate in the game again! But Monday morning came! My brother-in-law put his trousers on – but there were no buttons on them. He showed the unfortunate trousers to my sister, who grumbled a good deal because she had to drop all her work to sew buttons on. I confessed my crime and had my ears boxed. I never cut any buttons off again.

Shortly after my move to Wartha there was a wedding in Aunty Krušwica’s house in Guttau. I thought that I, as a relative, would be invited, but nothing came of that. While my sister and brother-in-law went to the wedding I had to stay at home to look after this and that. But I wanted desperately to go to Guttau, so after a few hindrances, while grandma was looking after the children, off I went. When I arrived at the house where the wedding reception was taking place, the guests had just risen from the table and they were walking in the gardens. Most of the guests did not notice the arrival of a little boy. My sister and brother-in-law, however, were surprised to see me and loudly asked me where I had come from and what I wanted there, and said I should lose no time in getting back to Guttau. Had it not been for the bride, Hana Krušwica, who took care of me, I might have returned home without a bite to eat, but she told the fat old braška (wedding-organizer) Kmoch from Quatitz to give me something to eat and he did so. So I tucked in to my heart’s content until my sister said: ‘Now hurry home, while it’s still daylight.’ I would have so liked to spend more time with my Guttau friends and acquaintances, but fear of the dark drove me home. I can no longer remember what sort of welcome I received from my Wartha grandma, so it cannot have been too bad.

Even when I was bigger I was easily frightened. I would not even cross the yard in the dark. I had heard so many tales and legends about ghosts, while I was little, and for me they all came alive in the dark. I was surrounded by ghostly shapes and my hair stood on end. I did not give up these foolish fears until I was a man.

My father was no longer living in Guttau; he had become an agricultural labourer and moved to Bautzen, where he lived in Ziegelei Street with a Mr Schmidt. They used to go to work together. One day I received a message from him that he wanted me to visit him. But how was I to get from Wartha to Bautzen, a journey of three and a half hours? Grandma had a solution. Evert afternoon the postman drove his trap with letters and parcels from Guttau to Bautzen, stayed there overnight and came back the next morning to Guttau. I accompanied him. I stayed the night with my father. He bought me whatever I needed. On further visits I made the journey on my own. I would set out on Sunday after lunch. Sometimes father accompanied me for part of the way. Afterwards I covered the whole journey on foot.

In autumn the old river, which flows through the Wartha meadows from Zubornička to Lemišow, would often burst its banks and flood the meadows. If winter came early the meadows were covered by ice and invited skaters. The teacher’s daughter Liza was outstanding among the skaters. People were amazed that girls too should go skating, but I was of the opinion that her prominence should have belonged to me rather than to a girl. My sister, however, could not afford to buy me skates. So I was overjoyed one day, when I received from my father the good news that I could go to the cobbler in Guttau and get myself a pair of skates. I did not need telling twice! I went for them on Sunday. It was thawing. From midday there was a strong wind blowing. On reaching the first pond I put my skates on and stepped out. I could not skate yet, but that was not necessary, because the wind was blowing me along with considerable force. I crossed the edge of the first pond. On the second I allowed myself to be driven further, but what was this? Here there were a lot of round holes bored into the ice. A managed to steer round the first, but there were more and more of them. So I could not help avoid skating into one and plunged into the cold water up to and over my knees. It was not so easy to climb out, because the ice was soft and brittle; but finally I made it and came home crying and shivering from my first skating exploit. I was chased up to bed immediately.

My brother-in-law in Wartha used to work in the forest, The men felled the timber and then worked on it. In the evening each of them was allowed to take home as much wood as he could carry. At midday the women and children would carry a meal into the woods; and they too would not go home without a few logs. ‘It’s a stupid woodsman that buys his own wood,’ said the old senior forester Sachsa one day, and that was the principle the workers followed. Of course, they always took pieces of resinous pine-wood home. But there was a disadvantage to that. Resinous pine-wood alone is not suitable for heating. For heating not much is needed. So grandma had another idea. In the loft there still lay the old flue, made of cloth, and the fireplace was beside the door. ‘In the evening we can light up the flue while spinning.’ said grandma. The next day grandpa had repaired it. I had to cut little, thin spills from the resinous pine-wood.

In the evening there were four spinners sitting round the fireplace. Above the fireplace hung the cloth flue, just like a big funnel. It was intended to catch the smoke and lead it to the chimney. I sat on a chair with my bunch of spills. Grandpa kept the fire going and I had to add spills, if possible, so steadily that the lighting of the room was always the same. Of course, I could not always manage that, so there was no lack of scolding. It was not a good light for working, but for spinning it was adequate. It would probably have been really good for an artist who could see the faces of the spinners in the red-yellow light of the resinous flame. While performing this duty I was doing my homework, which was often far from easy.

The Malschwitz school about fifty years ago was famous, among other things, because every year it had a school festival. One of the tenants of the manor-house had left a bequest and the interest was to be used for this festival. It was always held around Whitsun at the Gleina windmill. That was in the days when so much sand had not yet been extracted from the hill, so that there was enough room for the children to play their games. Herr Pjech, the Malschwitz cantor, was already an elderly but very jolly man, who knew how to organize fun and games for his children. When the Malschwitz children ‘went to hill’ – as they used to say – the whole region was on its feet, because at the windmill there was a little fair or a little shooting gallery. I too had agreed with three comrades to ‘go to the hill’. The way was long – over an hour – and we did not have much money – fifteen new pfennigs – but we just had to go. The main concern was always how to invest our money – on a piece of gingerbread, a piece of cake, a whistle, or on little balls – the decision was hard and hunger was growing, until finally I decided on half a roll with little fishes for ten new pfennigs. For the remaining five new pfennigs I bought gingerbread balls. I kept counting them again and again, so as not to eat more than would leave two for everyone at home. And so we arrived home in the half dark, tired out – but we had been ‘on the hill.’

When I had been two years in Wartha, my sister let me know one day that my father was getting remarried and I was to have a new mother. I have forgotten with what feelings I received this news, but I can still remember my first visit to my new home. It must have been at the beginning of August. The plums were ripe. So I went one afternoon to Pließkowitz. This was to be my new home. They all welcomed me very warmly there, so I was not afraid to move in, — but it was not yet time for that. After coffee my Pließkowitz grandpa took me out to the plum tree and said: ‘Now it is time for you to shake down the plums, as many as you like, and put them into your pockets, as many as you can get in.’ That was not a bad idea! So up I went into the fat tree. Then came the picking and shaking. Oh, those sweet plums! Further out along the branch. The further the sweeter. Yes, yes! And suddenly it fell. The branch and the boy were both lying on the ground. The boy said nothing because he had been winded. After a while he stood up. Otherwise he had suffered no harm. He picked everything of the broken branch. So there was still a little prize for the Wartha team! My first visit to my future home – both happy and sad.

A belief in the importance of secularization in literary history has caused the Sorbian hymn to receive less attention than it deserves, even though it has a longer pedigree than any other Sorbian literary form. From an entry in Bishop Thietmar’s Chronicle we know that his predecessor Boso (who died in 970) taught the newly converted Sorbs of his diocese to sing Kyrie eleison ‘Lord, have mercy’,[i] and, although it is debatable whether this constitutes a hymn, the fact remains that these two Greek words are the source of the Sorbian words for hymn, namely kerlus (Upper Sorbian) and kjarliz (Lower Sorbian). There are several other medieval sources referring to religious singing, but actual texts of Sorbian hymns are first found in Albin Moller’s hymnal and catechism of 1574, the oldest Sorbian printed book.[ii] It includes 122 Lower Sorbian metrical hymns, psalms, and canticles, most, if not all, of which are translations from German or Latin. It is unlikely that the Sorbian texts contain anything that has not been translated, but only a thorough comparison with the purported originals is capable of establishing this conclusively. It is generally accepted that most of the translations are Moller’s own work; but according to a 1738 source the versions of ‘Vater unser im Himmelreich’ and ‘Es ist das Heil uns kommen’ were written earlier, in 1545, by Simon Gast, pastor in Lubin (Lübben), which makes him the first known Sorbian hymnographer.[iii]

The literary skill employed in producing Moller’s metrical versions was not inconsiderable and is not diminished by their dependence on German and Latin originals. They are certainly of greater literary interest than the prose versions of the psalms written in a different dialect at about the same time which remained in manuscript.[iv] We do not know how many copies of Moller’s book were printed, but it cannot have been intended to be sold widely among the Sorbian populace, for they were almost all illiterate peasants. It was probably meant to be held by pastors and precentors, who taught the hymns orally to their congregations. By the mid nineteenth century only two copies were known to have survived, and today the number has been reduced to one.[v] The hymns it contains were not intended exclusively for church use; some of them were meant to be sung at home at specific times of the day; on rising, before and after meals, and before retiring to bed.[vi]

In his introduction (in German), explaining to his patron what moved him to produce his hymnal, Moller throws light on hymn singing in Lower Lusatian parishes in his day. He refers to a disordered situation in which ‘some Wendish hymns have too few syllables, but others have too many in the same meaning,’ and notes that ‘the same hymn may be sung in one church with certain words and in the next with others […]’[vii] He says that simple Christians are bewildered by this state of confusion and stresses the need for a consensus in neighboring churches regarding doctrine, sermons, baptism, singing, and other related matters.[viii]

The next printed Lower Sorbian hymnal after Moller’s did not appear until 1749. His ideas on uniformity appear to have had little effect on hymn-singing in the intervening one hundred and seventy-five years. To what extent his hymnal was used is not known, but it is clear that manuscript hymnals were in common use and that their texts varied considerably. A few examples of these manuscript hymnals have survived or, at least, were known to have survived until recent times, including: (I) a manuscript catechism and hymnal from Wjeliki Kolsk (Groß Kolzig) dating from the sixteenth or seventeenth century, compiled by Martinus Krüger,[ix] (II) an East Lower Sorbian manuscript from Wotšowaš (Atterwasch), dated 1615,[x] (III) a manuscript from Lutol (Leuthen), written before 1656, probably by Jurij Krügar,[xi] (IV) a manuscript hymnal from Wjerbno (Werben), dating from the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century,[xii] (V) a seventeenth-century manuscript from Wjelcej (Welzow),[xiii] (VI) a manuscript prayer-book and hymnal of 1723 by Christoph Gabriel Fabricius.[xiv]

The printed hymnal of 1749, entitled Kleine Sammlung geistreicher Lieder, was published in Cottbus and consists of two parts, containing a total of 211 hymns. Of the 158 hymns in the first part, 71 are furnished with the names of their translators. In the second part, which is separately entitled Fortgesetzte Sammlung derer in die wendische Sprache übersetzten Lieder, no translator’s names are given.[xv] The greater part of the attributed items (42 out of 71) are the work of Johann Ludwig Will, pastor of Brjazyna (Briesen). Others are translated by Jan Müller, pastor of Desno (Dissen), and Georg Petermann, deacon in Wětošow (Vetschau). Will is believed to have been the editor of the whole volume.[xvi] A second, broadly similar but greatly expanded hymnal (442 hymns) was published in Cottbus in 1760 with the title Wohl eingerichtetes Gesangbuch. Four of the original hymns had been re-worked, three omitted, and the sequence of the others changed. Will is thought to be the editor of this volume too.[xvii] Evidence that Moller had not been entirely overlooked by his successor is provided by a note to no. 39 ‘Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam’ explaining that a variant to verse seven may be found in Moller’s version.[xviii] A full comparison of Will’s hymns with Moller’s has never been made. Schwela, writing in 1944, when all copies of Moller were thought to be lost, could only say that there was no similarity between the two versions of ‘Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her,’ for this hymn in Moller’s version had been reproduced by K. A. Jenc in the Časopis Maćicy Serbskeje in 1858.[xix]

The dismembered state of the Lower Sorbs and their literature is demonstrated by the fact that in the parish of Lubnjow (Lübbenau) a separate printed hymnal was in use, the Lubnjowski sarski zambuch, containing translations made by Jan Gottlieb Hauptmann, pastor of Lubnjow. This was published in Lübben in 1769, the year after Hauptmann’s death, and continued in use until 1863, when, following the retirement of Pastor Kito Stempel, Sorbian was dropped in favor of German in the Lubnjow church.[xx] Local independence is particularly emphasized by the fact that, though more than half the hymns in Hauptmann’s Zambuch were based on the same originals as those in Will, not one was reproduced from Will’s version. The possibility that this had a theological explanation – Hauptmann leaning towards Lutheran orthodoxy, Will towards Pietism – was tentatively rejected by Schwela, who says, nevertheless, that no conclusive answer would be found until a proper textological analysis was carried out.[xxi]

Will’s hymnal appeared again, much enlarged, in 1777. According to K. A. Jenc, every Sorb could now use it to join in the singing in church,[xxii] but details of the supply and use of hymnals are scarce. At any rate, the age of manuscript copying was not long past, as may be seen from the manuscript hymnal dating from the period 1750-70, published by R. Olesch in 1977, and from the reference in the title of the supplement published with the 1777 edition to ‘hymns which hitherto have been sung only from writing.’[xxiii] A self-styled fifth edition appeared in 1860 under the new title Serske duchowne kjarliže. In reality, however, whether we count the 1760 edition as first or second, the number of editions that had appeared by 1860 seems to be in excess of five, possibly as many as eight.[xxiv] Around 1877 it was decided to carry out a thorough revision, particularly in order to improve rhyme and rhythm, and a team of ten revisers was assembled, though only three of them stayed the course. These were Kito Šwjela, Mato Kosyk, and Hendrich Kopf. Their work, counted as the ninth edition, came out in 1882, still with the title Serske duchowne kjarliže. It contained 617 hymns. Printed in an edition of 2,000 copies, it sold well, but caused a good deal of confusion, for, as was soon discovered, it could not be used simultaneously with earlier editions. Only the parishes of Popojce (Papitz) and Wjerbno (Werben) immediately abandoned the old version; they were later joined by Brjazyna (Briesen) and (in 1902) Chośebuz (Cottbus). In 1884 the Maćica Serbska bought the publishing rights and printed a second edition of the revised version (a further 2,000 copies). The parishes that had decided not to change eventually began to run short of copies. The old version was out of print, but they made shift by buying copies no longer required by the parishes that had changed. Eventually, in 1897, the Maćica Serbska published 1,500 copies of the old version, entitled Stare serbske duchowne kjarliže.[xxv] This called itself the twelfth edition. The Serbske duchowne kjarliže (by this time serbske was spelled with a b) was printed once more in 1901 in an edition described as the thirteenth and ‘of the new hymnal’ the third.[xxvi]

A further sign of the diversity that still separated some Lower Sorbian parishes from others in the nineteenth century is the existence of another hymnal that was first printed in Cottbus in 1800, entitled Nachtrag einiger Lieder, welche schon größtenteils in dem Niederlausitzischen wendischen Gesangbuche befindlich sind. Nach einer abgeänderten Übersetzung, wie solche in einigen Kirchen gesungen werden. It was printed in large type for the convenience of old people, but otherwise the only obvious motivation for publication is in the last part of the title, namely that some parishes preferred different translations from those in the Wohl eingerichtetes Gesangbuch. The Nachtrag, revised by David Bohuwěr Kopf, was republished in 1806 under the new title Serske spěwarske knigly, and contained 297 hymns. A special feature of this edition, as explained on the title-page, was a selection of hymns for funerals, and with time they came to be commonly used at funerals.[xxvii] There were further editions in 1817,1851, and 1858. By 1880 the 1858 edition was out of print and, in view of the fact that the Serske spěwarske knigly in some parishes (e.g. Wjerbno (Werben)) was used in church services other than funerals, a committee was formed to work on a new, revised edition. It is not clear whether this committee was connected with that responsible for the new edition of the Serbske duchowne kjarliže, but no further editions of the Serske spěwarske knigly were ever published.[xxviii]

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century the Lower Sorbian faithful made do with existing editions of the Serbske duchowne kjarliže, notably that of 1901. It was never reprinted and, as the congregations declined, the likelihood of its ever being so became more and more remote. Regular church services in Lower Sorbian came to an end when Bogumil Swjela (Šchwela), pastor of Dešno (Dissen), was forced into retirement and expelled from Lusatia in 1940. Strangely enough, he was still able to publish an article in 1944, in which he referred to the Serbske duchowne kjarliže as ‘the hymnal which had been in use until 1941.’[xxix] though he could not disclose the circumstances in which it had ceased to be used. When Lower Sorbian was restored to use in churches after 1945, it was only used intermittently. Nevertheless, the parish of Dešno in 1957 published a small book of hymns, compiled by H. Jahn.[xxx]

2

The upper Sorbs have no equivalent of Moller’s hymnal, but in other respects the development of the hymn in Upper Lusatia proceeded on similar lines to those in Lower Lusatia, i.e. on the basis of the independent initiative of individual pastors. The first Upper Sorbian hymns of which a record survives were translated from German originals by a certain Gregorius D. in Bautzen at some time between 1590 and 1596. His manuscript contains eight hymns and is dedicated to his friend Gregorius Leisentritt, who from 1589 to 1596 was Deacon of St. Peters Cathedral in Bautzen. They are metrical versions of 1. ‘Wir glauben all an einen Gott,‘ 2. ‘Vater unser im Himmelreich,’ 3. ‘Sei Lob und Ehre,’ 4. ‘Christus, der uns selig macht,’ 5. ‘Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund,’ 6. a hymn with the Latin title “Christe q[ui] lux es etc.,’ 7. ‘Also heilig ist der Tag,’ and 8. ‘Christ lag in Todes Banden.’[xxxi] Moller contains Lower Sorbian versions of at least six of these (1,2,4,5,7 , and 8), and it is possible that ‘Christe q[ui] lux es etc.’ is the same hymn as ‘Christe, du bist der helle Tag,’ of which there is a Lower Sorbian version in Moller, but the resemblance between the Upper and Lower Sorbian texts is meager. Gregorius D.’s hymns are distinctly homespun, but, for the most part, they rhyme and scan after a fashion, as may be seen from the following extract from the translation of ‘Christus, der uns selig macht’ (to be sung, according to the manuscript, ‘In Thon Patris Sapientia’):[xxxii]

The practice whereby individual clergymen made their own Sorbian translations of German hymns was also followed in Upper Lusatia, as Gregorius Martini reveals in the introduction to his own translation of seven penitential psalms, published in Bautzen in 1627 as Die sieben Bußpsalmen des königlichen Propheten Davids. Windisch und Deutsch. Indeed, this custom provided the motivation for his work, for he says that he hopes that his translations will counteract the variability resulting from the do-it-yourself method.[xxxv] However, diversity prevailed for a long time. It was not until 1710 that an Upper Sorbian hymnal appeared in print (unless Martini’s psalms be regarded as such). Until that year there was, in fact, no alternative to the do-it-yourself method. Each parish was left to its own devices. The congregations were, as in Lower Lusatia, mainly illiterate and learned hymns from precentors, who made their own translations or even composed hymns, sometimes in collaboration with the clergy. Upper Sorbian manuscript hymnals have survived in smaller numbers than their Lower Sorbian counterparts,[xxxvi] but an interesting example is provided by a manuscript of 101 pages entitled ‘Das wendische Gesangbuch und Catechismus,’ written by Martiny Müller in Bluń (Bluno) in 1675, containing hymns (according to one view) in the transitional dialect of the village where it was written[xxxvii] or (according to another view) in a mixture of Upper and Lower Sorbian.[xxxviii]

In 1689 the Upper Lusatian States (Landesstande) began to make arrangements for the translation of certain devotional work including hymns, into Upper Sorbian. A committee of Lutheran clergymen was set up under the chairmanship of Pawol Prätorius (1650-1709). All Sorbian parishes of Upper Lusatia were instructed by the States to prepare copies of the hymns used in their churches and to send them to the committee in Bautzen. It was envisaged that the manuscripts received would form the basis of a new hymnal, but the committee was disappointed by the versions sent in, many of which were found to run counter to ‘the rules of good poetry,’ the Sorbian language, or religious orthodoxy. They therefore resolved to make new translations from the German, adhering to the German rules of versification. The committee’s condemnatory tone was tempered by a kindly reference to Georg Schertz (1634-74) (whose name m ay be rendered in Sorbian as Jurij Šěrc), pastor in Dubc (Daubitz). He alone, they said, among the authors of the verse translations sent in, had understood and applied the rules of prosody, and this mention has ensured him a small place in Sorbian literary history.[xxxix] It is unfortunate that the hymns which came from him cannot be identified among those that were eventually published.

The volume appeared in Bautzen in 1710 as Das neue teutsche und wendische Gesang-Buch and contained 202 hymns. There were 42 more in the second edition (1719). A third edition followed in 1726 and a fourth, revised, edition in 1732.[xl] In all of these the German and Sorbian texts were published facing each other. The first Upper Sorbian Lutheran hymnal containing only Sorbian texts was the Duchomny wěrnych křesćijanow, published in Bautzen by Jan Gotthelf Böhmer (Běmar) (1704-47) in 1733. It contained 322 hymns and claimed to be cheaper and easier to carry than its predecessors.[xli] Considerations of portability may account for the unusual format (2 ½” x 6 ¼”), but it still managed to include 17 hymns (translations) which had not been previously published.[xlii] The omission of the German originals facilitated reduction of both price and size, and it was reprinted in 1734 and 1739. A larger, all-Sorbian hymnal followed in 1741. This too was compiled and edited by Böhmer. Entitled Duchomne kěrlišowe knihi, it was destined to become the standard hymnal in Upper Sorbian Lutheran churches. The 1741 edition consisted of 529 hymns, but this figure gradually grew as one edition followed another. By 1907 the Duchomne kěrlišowe knihi, had gone through about thirty editions.

After Böhmer’s death new editions were prepared by Adam Gottlob Šěrach (1724-1773), and both his and Böhmer’s names continued to appear on the title-pages of new editions long after they were dead. Šěrach came into conflict with other Lutheran pastors, when he omitted two hymns from the 1759 edition on account of their mystical nature. One of these (by Johann Gottfried Kühn (1706-63)) was subsequently reinstated by the church authorities.[xliii]

The steady flow of new editions in the eighteenth century indicates that the days were now past when the congregation was illiterate and had to be prompted by a precentor who had copied out his hymnal by hand. The change was a result of educational policies which increased the number of schools and those attending them. Even in the seventeenth century the growth of literacy was becoming ever more obvious and this inspired the initiative which led to the formation of Prätorius’ committee. By the mid eighteenth century it must have been common practice for each member of the congregation to hold a printed hymnal in his hands and to read the text as he sang.

Further changes in church music resulted from the introduction of organs. In the church at Palow (Pohla) between Bautzen und Bischofswerda, for example, the organ was installed in 1753. St. Michael’s Church in Bautzen got its organ in 1784. But the introduction of both printed hymnals and organs proceeded piecemeal. The congregation of Slepo (Schleife) managed without an organ until the middle of the nineteenth century,[xliv] but the last evidence we have of hymns being copied out by hand is supplied by a manuscript titled ‘Evangelisches wendisches Gesangbuch, nach welchem in der Kirchen allhier zu Laudta pfleget gesungen zu werden’, which was copied from an older manuscript in 1752-6 by Jan Bergar, assistant schoolmaster in Łuty (Lauta).[xlv] It contains 249 hymns in the local dialect. Factors determining the retention of the old procedure in Łuty may have included the singularity of its dialect. Living on the northern outskirts of Upper Lusatia, the villagers felt, perhaps, that the language of the printed hymnals was too remote for comfort. I find it difficult to accept K. A. Jenč’s alternative explanation, namely that news of the printed hymnals may in the 1750s not yet have reached this remote village.[xlvi]

The number of hymns in the Duchomne kěrlišowe knihi gradually increased, and then declined slightly. Rudolf Jenč refers to an edition published in 1930, containing 802 hymns, and to its immediate predecessor, containing 858.[xlvii] To judge from Wjacsławk’s record, the 1930 edition must be the Spěwarske knihi za evangelskolutherskich Serbow and the predecessor in question the Duchomne kěrlišowe knihi of 1907.[xlviii] Of the reduced number (802) in the 1930 edition, according to Jenč, only nine are original Sorbian compositions, the remainder being translations from German. By contrast, ninety-two years earlier, the edition of 1838 is said to have had 40 original compositions.[xlix] Translations may be identified by the fact that they are preceded by the first line of the German original. Those not preceded by a German line are presumably original compositions. On the basis of this criterion, as many as 50 of the hymns in the Nowy přidawk duchomnych kěrlušow, a supplement to the 1833 edition of the Duchomne kěrlišowe knihi,[l] may be identified as originals, of which 25 are by Handrij Lubjenski (1790-1840). A number of the translations are also his. Prominent among the other authors of original compositions in this volume are Emst Bohuwěr Jakub (1800-54) (ten originals) and Jan Kilian (1811-84) (five originals). The Spěwarske knihi za evangelsko-lutherskich Serbow was most recently republished in Bautzen in 1955.

Sorbian religious life in the eighteenth century was influenced by the settlement of Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut, established in 1772 on land donated by the Sorbophil and Pietist, Nikolaus Ludwig, Graf von Zinzendorf (1700-60). Herrnhut is only about six miles outside traditional Sorbian territory, to the south-east of Lubij (Löbau). Von Zinzendorf is the author of about 2,000 hymns, fourteen of which, in Sorbian translation, found their way into the Sorbian Lutheran hymnal. The best known of them is ‘Duša, ach duša, ty njeznaješ so,’ which was later revised by K. A. Fiedler (1835-1917) and provided with a new tune by K. A. Kocor (1822-1904).[li]

By the 1730s Sorbs had begun to visit Herrnhut settlement regularly, especially at Easter. They came on foot, singing hymns. Before long Sorbian groups of the Brethren were being formed. The most important group was in Ćichorica (Teichnitz), where Ernst August Hersen, a German who had learned Sorbian, was appointed teacher.[lii] The anonymous Tón hlós teje njewjesty Jezusoweje, published in Bautzen in 1750, containing 257 hymns, is said to represent a selection of von Zinzendorf s compositions, translated by Hersen. ‘Duša, ach duša, ty njeznaješ so,’ is not among them, but hymns in the Sorbian Lutheran hymnal which did originate in anonymous Tón hlós teje njewjesty Jezusoweje, are ‘Ta krej a prawdosć Krystusa,’ ‘O dźěćo lubowane,’ and ‘Na prěnim dnju po soboće.’ The hymn ‘Dajće so nam k Bohu modlić’ (no. 632 in the Lutheran hymnal) is said to have originated among the Sorbian Brethren and to owe its survival to Michał Hilbjenc (1758-1816).[liii]

3

Emphasis on the use of the vernacular and on the congregation’s active participation in the liturgy were distinctive features of the Reformation. Hymns were therefore central to Lutheran worship, but not to the Roman Catholic mass. This explains the prominence of the hymn in Sorbian literature, in contrast to the literatures of Slavonic peoples less affected by the Reformation. Nevertheless, Sorbian Catholics did have hymns in the vernacular both before and after the Reformation, though no pre-Reformation hymns in Sorbian have survived. The first known Catholic hymn in Sorbian was published by Jakub Ticin (1656-93) together with his translation of Peter Canisius’s catechism in Prague in 1685. It is a translation of ‘Ave maris stella,’ beginning with the line ‘Witaj z morja hwězda.’[liv]

In 1690 Jurij Hawstyn Swětlik (or Swótlik) (1650-1729) published his Swjate scenja, lekcijony a epistle na te njedźele a swjate dny toho cyłoho lěta, to which he appended a supplement, entitled Přidawk někotrych starych katolskich kěrlušow na serbsku rěč tak-to net přestawjenych and consisting of 16 hymns. This is the first Catholic Sorbian hymnal. The translations were evidently Swětlik’s own work. Six years later (1696) he published a more substantial volume with the title Serbske katolske kěrluše, kiž so na te SS. róčne časy abo tež hewak wšědnje a přez cyłe lěto spěwaju. This consists of 86 hymns, most of which have undoubtedly been translated from German, but some of which may be original compositions.[lv] A revised edition appeared in 1720. Both Ticin and Swětlik came from Wittichenau and wrote in a literary variety close to the dialect of that region. Catholic hymns were also published in the Winca Jězusowa, a prayerbook first produced by Peter Kowar (or Schmidt) (1688-1737) in 1737.[lvi] An important collection of 85 Catholic Sorbian hymns written in 1741 by a certain Petrus Kokula (of whom nothing further is known) remained in manuscript.[lvii] Further editions of the Winca Jězusowa, including hymns, appeared in 1747 and 1768.

Towards the end of the century Michał Jan Wałda (1721-94) published prayers and hymns separately in two large volumes, namely Jězusowa winca (Bautzen, 1785) (prayers) and Spěwawa Jězusowa winca (Bautzen, 1787) (hymns). The latter contains 659 hymns, many of which are Wałda’s own translations from Latin or German and five of which are his own compositions.[lviii] A strikingly ecumenical feature is provided by the inclusion of 80 hymns from the Lutheran Duchomne kěrlišowe knihi, some of which are translations of hymns written by Luther himself. Wałda also collected hymn tunes, many of which were traditional among the Sorbs and of great antiquity. His book of 238 tunes to accompany the Spěwawa Jězusowa winca was completed in 1788. Though never printed, it was made available to all the Catholic parishes in manuscript copies.[lix]

Wałda’s Spěwawa Jězusowa winca was never reprinted, but it was influential. It is said to have been the basis and source of the following:[lx]

1. The Winca Jězusowa of 1807, containing 87 hymns, of which nine were not in the Spěwawa Jězusowa winca. Its descent from the latter is not beyond doubt. Wjacsławk records it as a scion of the 1768 Winca, a view supported by the uninverted title. Used in the parish of Ralbicy (Ralbitz), it came to be known as the Ralbičanske spěwarske.

2. The Jězusowa winca (Bautzen, 1836), containing 133 hymns, five of which are not in the Spěwawa Jězusowa winca. It was used in the parish of Wotrow (Ostro) and thus came to be known as the Wotrowske spěwarske.

3. The Jězusowa winca (Bautzen, 1853), containing 143 hymns, of which 13 are not in the Spěwawa Jězusowa winca. It was used in the parish of Chrósćicy (Crostwitz) and was known as the Chrósćanske spěwarske.

In the second half of the nineteenth century Michał Hórnik (1833-94) set about reforming Catholic Sorbian hymns. The first task was to restore the unity which had been lost by the adoption of separate hymnals in separate parishes. Hórnik’s Mjeńše spěwarske knihi za katolskich Serbow (Bautzen, 1878) appeared as a supplement to Jurij Luscanski’s Nowa Jězusowa winica (Bautzen, 1877). Luscanski’s book consisted of prayers, whereas Hórnik’s contained hymns. The further task of combining prayers and hymns in one volume was performed in Hórnik’s Pobožny spěwar. Mjeńše spěwarske knihi z modlitwami (Bautzen, 1879). A considerably enlarged combined hymnal and prayerbook was published by Hórnik in Bautzen in 1888 with the title Pobožny wosadnik. Modlitwy a kěrluše za katolskich Serbow. New editions appeared in 1900, 1919, 1929, 1951, 1960, 1977, and 1979. Since 1951 the title has been simplified to Wosadnik. Modlitwy a kěrluše za katolskich Serbow.

4

The hymn not only has a longer history than any other Sorbian literary form, it has also, mainly thanks to the effects of the Reformation, been uniquely pervasive in Sorbian society. Even when they were illiterate the Sorbs were in contact with written literature in the form of the Bible and hymns. Even after they had learned to read, the hymn provided most Sorbs with their only access to poetry, apart from folk-songs. And hymn-singing was not restricted to church services. As we know from Jan Gotthelf Böhmer’s introduction to his Duchomny wopor, hymns were also sung at work:

[I shall recall here that many Christians who know several hymns by heart

may also sometimes sing the same at their work…]

Pondering the propriety of this practice, he concludes that it is sinful only if the singer keeps his thoughts more on his work than on his singing. Provided that his heart is raised to God and his thoughts are on what he is singing, the practice (says Böhmer) is praiseworthy and pleasing to God.[lxii]

Hymns influenced the Sorbian people and inspired their verbal art. This is particularly clear in the case of those unschooled writers known as ludowi basnicy ‘folk-poets’, such as Pětr Młóńk (1805-87) and Jan Bohuwěr Dalwica-Dólba (1785-1849). Their poems are virtually hymns.[lxiii] The more sophisticated writers may, to some extent, have concealed the influence of hymns on their work, but it is there.[lxiv] It would be surprising if echoes from hymns were not to be found in even the most secular literature. From the point of view of the singers, particularly those who sang hymns at their work, the distinction between secular and sacred must have been tenuous, for they were also familiar with the pokěrlušk (Upper Sorbian) or bamžycka (Lower Sorbian), a type of folk-song with religious themes. The Wandrowski kěrluš (attributed to Handrij Lubjenski), a hymn which evokes the Biblical theme of man as a stranger on the earth, was sufficiently close to the folk-song for Jan Ernst Smoler to include it in his famous folk-song collection of 1841.[lxv] This, according to Rudolf Jenč, was the hymn sung by the Upper Sorbian emigrants, led by Jan Kilian, when they left their homeland for America in 1854.[lxvi]

Many questions concerning the textology of the Sorbian hymn remain unanswered. The distinction is blurred not only between the sacred and the profane, but also between the translated and the original, for what started out as a faithful translation of a German or Latin hymn sometimes underwent repeated revision until it bore little resemblance to the original. At the same time, hymns which are not translations often embody echoes from hymns which are. There are many questions of authorship, originality, influence, social function, and relationship with folk-songs which require answers, if we are to move towards a fuller understanding of the role of poetry and song in the history of the Sorbs down the ages.

[l] I refer to a copy of the Nowy přidawk duchomnych kěrlušow in my possession which cannot be identified in Wjacsławk. It lacks a title-page, but can be dated to the period 1840-9 on the basis of biographical notes on p. 124 which record the death of H. Lubjenski (19 March 1840) but not that of Jan Traugott Dalwica (Dallwitz), who died on 19 September 1849.

[lxiv] It is not merely a question of echoes, but also of direct references and quotations. Jan Radyserb-Wjela, for example, concludes his story Napad pola Bukec 1758 by quoting the first stanza of the hymn ‘Złoty měr wšo dobre płodźi’ (J. Radyserb-Wjela, Wuběrk prozy (Berlin, 1956), 50) and in his Bitwa pola Budyšina there is a scene in which Jurij comes upon Lubinka comforting a sick widow by reading hymns to her, specifically ‘Mi žiwjenje sy Chryšće, smjerć je mi dobyće.’

1985: Language planning and the Lower Sorbian literary language. In The formation of the Slavonic literary languages. Proceedings of a conference held in memory of Robert Auty and Anne Pennington at Oxford 6-11 July 1981 (ed. G. Stone and D. Worth), 99-103. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica

1987: The Lusatian Sorbs (Wends) as an object of interest and study in Great Britain. In Language and culture of the Lusatian Sorbs throughout their history (ed. M.Kasper), 147-157. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag

Dr Stone produced his latest book, Slav Outposts in Central European History: the Wends, Sorbs and Kashubs in 2016. It can be purchased through Bloomsbury Publishing. The introduction to the book is reprinted below.

Slav Outposts in Central European History

Introduction

Wends, Sorbs, and Kashubs

This is a history of the westernmost Slavs. It is set in the wide, fluctuating frontier area of contact between the German language and its Slav neighbors, extending, roughly speaking, from the rivers Elbe and Saale in the west to the upper Oder and lower Vistula in the east. In the latter part of the first millennium AD, these lands (referred to in this book as Trans-Elbia) were the home of a conglomeration of pagan Slav tribes. The Latin sources record them collectively as Sclavi, Slavi (and the like), or as Winedi, Venedi (and the like), but when Latin is replaced by German, they appear mainly as Wenden (rarely as Winden). The English equivalent Wends is the term used here.

The medieval habitations of the Wends were the western outposts of the Slavs. To their west they faced the Kingdom of the Franks. Along the Baltic coast they extended to the lower Vistula, where their eastern neighbors were the Prussians (Prusai), speakers of a Baltic language. Eventually, the fate of all the west Slav peoples was drawn, to a greater or lesser extent, into the vortex of German history, but the Wends lay in the direct path of Frankish (later German) expansion. In the east, they and the Prusai stood in the way of Polish access to the Baltic Sea. Today, what was once their homeland lies mainly in Germany and partly in Poland. Borders have been drawn and redrawn many times.

The Wends survive, even today, as the Kashubs in northern Poland (to the west of Gdansk in the Województwo Pomorskie)and as the Wends and Sorbs in parts of Brandenburg and Saxony. They are among the European linguistic minorities of whom political frontiers take no account. One of the medieval Wendish tribes, located in 782 AD between the Elbe and Saale, was identified in Latin as the Sorabi. From this name, centuries later, the German analogue Sorben was devised and occasionally applied to those Wends in Brandenburg and Saxony who in their own language used the self­ designatory noun, Serb. In the late 1940s, Sorben was given official approval and in Saxony, at least, Wenden fell out of fashion, except in topography (e.g. Wendische Straße). In this book, therefore, the English analogue Sorbs is also used, when appropriate.

The Wends of the Baltic coast too were in German called Wenden until the eighteenth century, since when Kaschuben has prevailed. In this book, they are generally referred to as Kashubs, but in translations from German, Wenden is always conveyed as Wends. The Wends may be defined as those western Slavs who have never had their own state. Although it is clear from both translations and contexts that medieval Latin Sclavi and Slavi are usually the equivalents of German Wenden/Winden, in all the quotations in this book, Latin Slavus/Sclavus is translated as ‘Slav.’

In present-day German, the variant Winden refers to the Slavs south of the Alps who are better known as Slovenes (and who regard the form Winden as derogatory). But it is only since the nineteenth century that the distinction between Wenden, wendisch (West Slavs) and Winden, windisch (South Slavs) has been stabilized. Before that usage was erratic. The history of the Slovenes is outside the scope of this book.

Trans-Elbia

Germany to the east of the Elbe and Saale is colonial territory. taken by conquest as part of the process that was once seen as ‘the advance of culture toward the east during the Middle Ages, based upon the superiority of the older and higher culture …’(M. Weber 1906/1974: 384). The German colonization of the east (Ostsiedlung) was then regarded as ‘the greatest exploit of the German people in the MiddleAges’ (Widu. Gesch. 1935: 63). For the Wends, however, it was their downfall, and their subsequent history has been a tale of decline. Since their subjugation they have remained outside the mainstream of European history and have never succeeded in malting a mark on the political map. At the same time, however, their history is a tale of survival.

The Wends still survive in the east German psyche. Opening the Wendish Museum in Cottbus on 3 June 1994, Dr Manfred Stolpe, prime minister of the state of Brandenburg, said that ‘every true-born Brandenburger has a Wendish great-grandmother’ (NC 1994:4), and similar claims could be made about the other inhabitants of Trans-Elbian Germany. Centuries after the subjugation the Elbe-Saale line remained a cultural boundary. The condition of the peasantry beyond the Elbe, even as the feudal order approached its end, has been judged ‘far more onerous and far more degrading than the vestigial serfdom of western Europe’ (Blum 1978: 38-9), and this may have been so because Trans-Elbia was a zone of comparatively recent German settlement (Clark 2006: 161). The Trans-Elbian mind is said to have been perceptible even in the nineteenth century as a ‘subservient mentality which passively accepted the actions and encroachments of the state,’ forming ‘a kind of psychic pendant to the authoritarian political system’ (Wehler 1985: 129). A special feature of the Trans-Elbian sociological landscape were the Junkers, endowed with land expropriated from the Wends (Taylor 1945: 28-9).

Before the Wends

The Slavs appear late in European history. Tribal names ostensibly referring to Slavs (Sclaveni, Sclavini, Antes, and Veneti)are found no earlier than the mid-sixth century in the works of the last historians of the ancient world, Procopius of Caesarea and Jordanes. Jordanes in his history of the Goths (c. 552 AD) places the Slavs (Venethi, Sclavini, Sclavi, and Antes)in an area taking in the Black Sea coast, the eastern Alps, and the west Carpathians. It includes the upper Vistula, but says nothing of the space between the Oder and the Elbe (MPH, 1:1-2). The Germanic tribes located by Tacitus (in his Germania)and others in the first two centuries AD in the space between the Vistula and the Elbe had by the eighth century been replaced by Slavs, and, because there is no record of invasion or conquest by them, their arrival is presumed to have been a peaceful process. It is estimated to have taken place between 600 and 700 AD, as the Slavs moved into land which was unoccupied, having been deserted by its Germanic inhabitants before 500 AD (Blaschke 2003: 68-9).

The ‘German colonization of the East’ was once a prominent issue in German history textbooks and a matter of pride. It was claimed that the medieval incursions into Slav land were justified because the invaders and colonizers from the west were reoccupying land that had previously been theirs. They called it the German re-occupation (deutsche Wiederbesiedlung)of the east, a notion that eventually bolstered the idea of Lebensraum, affecting political policy (Blaschke 2003: 66). Reinforcement was provided by the anachronistic use of the term Deutschland, as in connotations like ‘The immigration of the Slavs into north Germany’ (Die Einwanderung der Slawen in Norddeutschland)(Montelius 1899: 127). The 1935 Nazi textbook Widukind (not to be confused with the tenth-century chronicler Widukind of Corvey) was merely repeating received opinion, when it referred to: ‘The German east, land of the German people since time immemorial, having been surrendered to the Slavs after the time of the great Germanic migration […]’ (Widu. Gesch. 1935: 71).

The two assumptions (i) that the Wendish lands beyond the Elbe were re-occupied (rather than simply occupied) and (ii) that Germany existed before the Wends arrived are mistaken, because the Germanic tribes who are thought to have occupied these lands in the third and fourth centuries were not German (deutsch). By 500 AD, at which time Germany (Deutschland)did not yet exist, they had withdrawn to a position west of the Elbe-Saale line (Blaschke 2003: 68). The trap of equating Germania with Germany is always open and the task of explaining to tourists, for example, the presence in Germany today of the Wends and Sorbs is fraught with the temptation to oversimplify. A brochure for tourists, published in Bautzen, once wrote: ‘From the sixth century Slav tribes colonized large parts of central and north Germany’ (Sorben 2000: 1). This was corrected in later editions.

The notion of ‘re-occupation’ is also present in the Polish term Ziemie Odzyskane‘ Recovered Territories,’ the name given to the German territory east of the Oder-Neisse Line annexed by Poland in 1945, but the inhabitants of much of this land in the Middle Ages, before it fell victim to German expansion, had been not Poles but Wends. The history of the Wends therefore extends into parts of what is today Poland (Pomerania, eastern Lusatia).

The Smallest Slavonic Nation is the best read about the people called Wends or Sorbs. It can be purchased from Amazon. The Introduction to this fascinating book can be read below.

Introduction

Location and Distribution

The people forming the subject of this study have been known variously in English as Wends, Lusatians orSorbs. They constitute a national minority inhabiting a small piece of territory in the German Democratic Republic to the south-east of Berlin. The Sorbs are Slavs, but unlike all the other Slavonic peoples they do not form a separate political unit, though their existence is given official recognition and they are accorded certain important rights as a minority by the state in which they live. They are distinguished from many other national minorities in Europe by the fact that they do not form part of a larger ethnic unit based in another state. The entire Sorbian people in fact constitutes a minority and does not look beyond the German frontier to some spiritual homeland elsewhere.

The area occupied by the Sorbs, which is situated in the part of Germany known as Lusatia, has no precisely defined boundaries, natural or otherwise. The northern limits are encountered roughly 50 miles (80 km) south-east of Berlin. Sorbian territory then extends southwards for some 56 miles (90 km) and is roughly half that distance in width at its widest point measured from east to west. In the south, Sorbian is separated from Czech by a broad band of territory where for centuries past only German has been spoken. In the east, on the other hand, there are places where Polish and Sorbian are (or were but recently) separated by little more than the waters of the river Neisse, though the most easterly dialect, that of Mužakow (Muskau), is now virtually extinct. Indeed, it is not long since Sorbian territory extended considerably further to the east, beyond the Neisse into what is today Polish territory; but the right bank of the Neisse had been completely germanized before the establishment of the new Polish frontier following the Second World War. Before the new frontier was set up, of course, the Sorbs were very much further from their Polish neighbors than they are today.

Writing in 1883 W. R. Morfill likened the Sorbs to a little Slavonic island in a German sea,[1]and this description conveys vividly the essential isolation of their position. Quite apart from the fact that the island is now very much closer to the Slavonic mainland than it was in Morfill’s day, however, the distribution of the population has changed considerably since that time and the island is now occupied by a mixed population of Germans and Sorbs. Most of the towns, in fact, have been predominantly German ever since their foundation, but until recently the villages were predominantly or entirely Sorbian. Owing to changes in the composition of the rural population, however, the Sorbs now live in an area of mixed nationality and, like almost any national minority in the modern world, they are constantly subject to assimilatory pressures from the majority in whose midst they live. How long they will preserve their identity is a matter for speculation. There can be no doubt that the numbers are declining. Until 1945 there were some villages with almost 100 per cent Sorbian population, the only Germans being officials, such as the police. But in that year and subsequently, many of the Germans expelled from territories beyond the Oder-Neisse line and from the Sudetenland were resettled in Lusatia, causing far-reaching changes in the national composition of the population.

Economic changes too have affected the Sorbs, hastening the processes of germanization. A key factor in the economic planning of the GDR is the exploitation of the brown coal resources which it possesses in abundance. The Black Pump Combine, which is the world’s largest plant for processing brown coal and producing gas and electricity, is situated in the middle of Lusatia between Grodk (Spremberg) and Wojerecy (Hoyerswerda). Here there are vast brown coal deposits, probably the largest in Europe, and nearby the new town of Neu­Hoyerswerda has been built specially to house the combine’s workers, together with their families. The once predominantly Sorbian character of this region has changed within a matter of only a few years.

Sorb, Wend, or Lusatian

The name Lusatia, which has long since ceased to have any political significance, vaguely designates an area stretching southwards from just south of Berlin as far as the Czechoslovak [Czech Republic] border. The river Spree (U. So. and L. So. Sprjewja)runs through the entire length of Lusatia from south to north. The part containing the upper reaches of the river is known as Upper Lusatia; that containing the lower reaches as Lower Lusatia. In Lower Lusatia, in the part known to Germans as the Spreewald (Spree Forest) and to Sorbs as the Błota (Marshes), the river splits up into a network of separate streams. Water is a dominating feature of the Lower Lusatian landscape. The central area, where Upper and Lower Lusatia meet, contains the Serbska kola (Sorbian Heath), which is interspersed with coniferous forest and includes the brown coal deposits. The soil here is poor and sandy.

Further south, Upper Lusatia is more fertile, but less picturesque, than either the Heath or the Spree Forest. The land here is mostly flat, but there are hills in the extreme south. To the north of these bills, though well within sight of them, lies Bautzen (U. So. Budysin), a town of about 44,000 inhabitants. Of these not many more than 1000 are Sorbs, but Bautzen is the home of a number of important Sorbian institutions, and the Sorbs of Upper Lusatia traditionally regard it as their capital. It is a charming medieval town, standing above the Spree, with narrow streets, pleasantly shaded walks and many architectural treasures. The earliest historical reference to the town is from the year 1018, when the Peace of Bautzen was concluded. At that time it was already an important Slav settlement.

Cottbus (L. So. Chośebuz), which with a population of nearly 80,000 is the main town of Lower Lusatia, isalso situated on the Spree. It is an important economic centre, much bigger than Bautzen, and almost entirely German.

The area inhabited by the Sorbs constitutes only part of Lusatia. Nevertheless, the name Lusatia (Ger. Lausitz, U. So.Łužica, L. So. Łužyca) has been particularly associated with its Slavonic inhabitants. Consequently, in some languages derivatives of the name Lusatia have been used to refer to the Sorbs and their language. In Polish, for example, the language is called językłużycki and the people are Łużyczanie. In German, however, the words Lausitzer and lausitzisch have never been applied specifically to the Slavonic part of the population and its language. Instead, the terms Wende and wendisch were, until recently, the terms normally used. These terms may still be heard in use, but are nowadays avoided in all East German official publications, being replaced by Sorbe and sorbisch. The words Wende and wendisch were officially abandoned for two reasons:

(1) They were imprecise and vague, since they were applied also to other Slavs with whom Germans had come into contact, such as the Polabians. Terms were required which referred specifically to the Slavs of Lusatia.

(2) They had frequently been used with a derogatory connotation and were the source of unpleasant puns based on their identification with the verb wenden ‘to turn’ and the plural of die Wand ‘wall’-die Wände.

The terms Sorbe and sorbisch had, of course, been used before 1945, but their use was then comparatively rare. Nowadays, however, they are officially the only proper terms in German, Wende and wendisch being restricted to the vernacular in the GDR and to German-language sources originating outside its boundaries. In both Upper and Lower Sorbian the word for a Sorb is Serb. The adjective is serbski.

In English the terms ‘Wend’ and ‘Wendish’ have been used in the past, but it would seem proper to abandon them now, even though they have obviously not acquired the same derogatory connotations as their German equivalents. Use has also been made of the word ‘Lusatian’ in English scholarship, but its use raises certain problems since it does not refer specifically to the Slavs of Lusatia. It is not clear, for example, whether ‘a Lusatian’ is a Slavonic or German inhabitant of Lusatia. Nor is it clear whether ‘a Lusatian dialect’ means a dialect of Sorbian or of German. In any case, the arguments in favor of the use of the word ‘Sorbian’ in English scarcely need to be enumerated, for the overwhelming majority of relevant publications have already established it as the normal term. Very little, it is true, has been written on the Sorbs in English, but there are many comparative works which make reference to them, usually using the words ‘Sorb’ and ‘Sorbian.’ Even in the nineteenth century ‘Sorb’ and ‘Sorbish’ were being used in English (in addition to ‘Wend’ and ‘Wendish’).

Another term which has been occasionally used in English is ‘Lusatian Serb’, the awkwardness and ambiguity of which are self-evident, particularly when references to the Serbs of Serbia occur in the same context.

National status

The Sorbs have occupied their present homeland since the beginning of recorded history. They are in fact the last survivors of the Slavonic tribes which once occupied most, if not all, inhabited territory between the rivers Elbe and Oder. It isthe Sorbs who represent the earlier population of Lusatia, whereas their German-speaking neighbors are the heirs of successive waves of German invaders and colonists who, from the eighth century onwards, began to press eastwards across the Elbe into the lands held by the Slavs. This German pressure eastwards, however, which has been maintained for nearly twelve centuries, has affected not only the Sorbs but many other Slavonic nations lying in the invaders’ path. The full significance of Sorbian national survival can only be appreciated when viewed in the context of this centuries-old conflict of German and Slav, which reached its apogee in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Both linguistically and in other respects the Sorbs are closely related to their nearest Slavonic neighbors, the Poles and the Czechs. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt at all of their separate national and linguistic status, even though they lack the political institutions, and hence the separate political status, of the other Slavonic peoples. They have their own history, folklore and cultural traditions. Most important of all – they have their own language and sense of nationality. Throughout recorded history they have constituted a separate ethnic entity. In many important respects then, despite small numbers and inferior political status, the Sorbs have the right to be regarded no differently from the other Slavonic nations.

Sorbian studies

Slavonic linguists, of course, have long been conscious of the peculiarities of the Sorbian language. It occupies a large section in R. G. A. de Bray’s Guide to the Slavonic Languages, where it is dealt with on an equal footing with the other ten members of the Slavonic group.[2] In other respects, however, the Sorbs are little known outside Central Europe, and even their language, despite de Bray’s valuable survey, remains something of which many Slavists are only vaguely aware.

In Germany itself one does not have to move far outside Lusatia to find people who have never heard of the Sorbs. Even among their Slavonic neighbors in Poland and Czechoslovakia [Czech Republic] such ignorance, though rare, is not unknown. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that in Great Britain, even in circles normally well informed in such matters, total ignorance of the existence of the Sorbs is not unusual. Despite this, however, English scholarship has made its modest contribution to Sorbian studies. Professor de Bray’s Guide has already been referred to. Another British Slavist whose name has already been mentioned, who even in the nineteenth century was well acquainted with the language and literature of the Sorbs, was W. R. Morfill, who included in his book on the Slavonic literatures a chapter entitled ‘The Wends in Saxony and Prussia’.[3]

The fact that in the West there is widespread ignorance on the subject unfortunately means that it is possible to make the most far-fetched statements about the Sorbs without fear of being challenged. An otherwise useful book on the GDR, for example, says that the Sorbs ‘usually converse in German among themselves,’ and refers disparagingly to ‘their supposedly native tongue.’[4] It describes Bautzen as ‘the make­believe capital of a Red wonderland of symbolism’ and asserts that ‘most people in the area regard the whole thing as a huge joke.’[5] It can only be hoped that reliable information on the present-day position of the Sorbs will eventually become sufficiently widespread for statements of this kind to be received with the incredulity they deserve.[6]

In Central and Eastern Europe, as is only to be expected, the study of the Sorbs, their history, language and culture has a well­established, though modest, place in the general framework of Slavonic studies. Elsewhere, even in the United States, despite the tremendous expansion of Slavonic studies in general over the past few years, little attention has been paid to Sorbian studies so far. It is evident that Sorbian matters are unlikely ever to occupy any but a peripheral position in the study of the Slavonic peoples and languages, but it is equally evident that there are certain features of the Sorbian situation likely to attract the interest of many who are not primarily concerned with the study of the Slavs. As Morfill puts it, ‘even so obscure a people as the Lusatian Wends may be found to yield a treasure to those who are curious in these matters’.[7]

[6] Dr Frido Mětšk, Das lnteresse der Ostforschung des westdeutschen Imperialismus an den Sorben, Bautzen: 1968 (Schriftenreihe für Lehrer and Erzieher im zweisprachigen Gebiet 1/68), deals with a host of inaccuracies encountered in West German publications. Such inaccuracies would, of course, be more readily recognized for what they are, if more detailed information on certain questions such as the size and distribution of the Sorbian population were forthcoming from East German sources.